Monday, 19 December 2011

An Egg Dance

Over on the Dear Dogberry page, a reader has asked why we have the phrase walking on eggshells when walking on eggs would make much more sense. For myself, I can't understand why you would do either. However, upon investigation I've discovered that walking on eggs was the original version of the phrase. The OED records it from 1734, where as the walking on eggshell doesn't pop up until 1860.

A much more amusing variant is a thing called an egg dance, which can be performed at home, but probably not on your best carpet. All you'll need is a bunch of eggs, which you arrange on the floor, and a blindfold, which you put over your eyes. You now dance around trying not to tread upon any eggs however lightly.

This performance was common enough about thirty years back, and was well received at Sadler's Wells; where I saw it exhibited, not by simply hopping round a single egg, but in a manner that much increased the difficulty. A number of eggs, I do not precisely recollect how many, but I believe about twelve or fourteen, were placed at certain distances marked upon the stage; the dancer taking his stand, was blind-folded, and a hornpipe being played in the orchestra, he went through all the paces and figures of the dance, passing backwards and forwards between the eggs without touching one of them.

As you can imagine, an egg-dance became a byword for any intricate and difficult task, and makes a lot more sense than walking on either eggs or eggshells.

Scrambled eggs at the Inky Fool offices

P.S. The first part of the Etymologicon was read out by Hugh Dennis on Radio 4 this morning. You can listen to it by following this link.

Really? It's been very pleasantly betabled in almost every branch of Waterstones that I've been into. But each branch is different, I suppose, and I haven't had a chance to do much investigation beyond central London. The best thing is to ask for it at the counter, then put on a fake moustache and a funny accesnt and ask for it again. Keep varying this until they decide that it's the Next Big Thing. That's what I do, anyway.

I must agree with the anonymous poster from 19/12 12:57. Had I not had the fortune to spend an extra half an hour in bed this morning, I would never have heard of your book. On the strength of the radio four reading alone I can recommend the book to several friends, and have bought myself a copy. I am very much looking forward to reading it!

M.H. Forsyth - I went in to Waterstones near 'The Galleries' mall in Bristol and a/ They didn't know how to spell it, so I had to key it into their computer and b/ when asked what it was about, the person didn't know the meaning of the word 'etymology', then c/ It was hidden away in their 'reference' section with a zillion other dictionaries and the like and I didn't have time to wade through and try to find it, if they couldn't be @r$ed to make it easy to find...

Still, there's always Amazon, but that is really the whole problem for the bookseller, is it not ?

Antipodean readers are well aware of this fine work- the book has had great reviews in the Sydney Morning Herald and other papers. I have found it unputdownable, a real feast for anyone who loves works on words, and very funny indeed.A real fnid, as our proofreader friend says...

My favourite book of this and possibly any other Christmas is Mark Forsyth's A Short History of Drunkenness - The Spectator

Sparkling, erudite and laugh out loud funny. Mark Forsyth is the kind of guide that drunks, teetotallers and light drinkers dream of to explain the ins and outs of alcohol use and abuse since the beginning of time. One of my books of the year. Immensely enjoyable. Professor Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

A Short History of Drunkenness is this year's Châteauneuf-du-Pape of Christmas books, no less. Bloody entertaining. - Emlyn Rees

Sometimes you see a book title that simply gladdens the heart. Everyone I showed this book to either smiled broadly or laughed out loud . . . This is a book of some brilliance - Daily Mail

With a great eye for a story and a counterintuitive argument, Mark Forsyth has enormous fun breezing through 10,000 years of alcoholic history in a little more than 250 pages. - The Guardian

Well researched and recounted with excellent humour, Forsyth's alcohol-ridden tale is sure to reduce anyone to a stupor of amazement. - Daily Express

This entertaining study of drunkenness makes for a racy sprint through human history - history being, as Mark Forsyth wittily puts it "the result of farmers working too hard". - The Sunday Times

This charming book proved so engrossing that while reading it I accidentally drank two bottles of wine without realising. - Rob Temple, author of Very British Problems